applying to schools with a 35+ mcat?

I can only speak for myself, n=1. MCAT was a 30 and GPA 4.0.

Grew up homeless and sold things on the street to get by. Worked 40 hours/week all throughout high school.

Worked 60 hours/week all 4 years of college to support disabled parents as an EMT (20hrs/wk), ER Tech (20hrs/wk), and ER Scribe (20hrs/wk). Got stellar LOR's from the ER doctors I worked with at a hospital associated with a top 10 medical school since I worked both as an ER Tech and ER scribe there all 4 years consistently.

You can see why I didn't score that well on the MCAT. I didn't have any money for resources or time for it. I took it with electronic PDF review books, as a History major with bare minimum science classes. I made sure to point this out in my application.

Zero research since I spent most of my time working to put a roof over my family and community service with the impoverished and homeless. I guess there was a pity factor involved since my personal statement addressed all of this. But who knows, my application cycle was years ago. Maybe HMS and other schools don't think so much of these things anymore nowadays.

/r/premed Thread Parent